Five of eleven ethnic Mongolians
along with one Chinese were arrested
on August 12, 2010, in Beijing while
they were protesting against the
Chinese authorities’ discriminatory
policy towards ethnic Mongolians in
employment. After separate
interrogations in Beijing, they were
transferred back to their home
place, Darhan Muumingan Holboot
Banner (Da Mao Qi in Chinese,
Banner is equivalent to county) of
Bogot Municipality (Bao Tou Shi
in Chinese), Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region (IMAR), for
detention.

Currently the six are still being
held at the Gu Cheng Wan Detention
Center of Bogot Municipality. No
legal procedure has yet been filed.
On August 28, two of the other
protesters who escaped police arrest
in Beijing were arrested by the
local police upon their arrival in
Darhan Muumingan Holboot Banner and
have been detained in the same
detention center. The whereabouts of
the remaining four Mongolian
protesters are still unclear.

Family members of the detainees have
been denied visitation rights. Ms.
Buyantsetseg, sister-in-law of one
of the detainees, Ms. Shurentsetseg,
told the Southern Mongolian Human
Rights Information Center (SMHRIC)
that on August 13, the detainees’
cell phones and other personal
belongings were confiscated by the
police in Beijing before one of them
was allowed to speak briefly to her
family members about their arrest.
Since then, contact with their
family members has been denied.

Shortly after their detention,
family members and relatives of the
six detainees were summoned to the
Public Security Bureau Police Squad
No.2 of Darhan Muumingan Holboot
Banner and informed of their
detention. No official document was
given to the family members and
relatives. A police officer briefly
told them that the six protesters
are detained because of their “illegal
petitioning”
and “disturbance of public order”.

According to Ms. Ariuunhas, one of
the four protesters who remains at
large, they made a trip to Beijing
to appeal directly to the State
Bureau of Letters and Calls
(national complaint center), to
protest the local government’s
discriminatory and unfair treatment
of Mongolian professional school and
college graduates in employment. She
told SMHRIC that most of the
Mongolian students who majored in
teaching in Mongolian at the
Ulaanchav Municipality Mongolian
Normal School and graduated during
the period 1994-99 have not been
given any employment opportunity.

An open letter from the protesters
sent to the attention of the Party
Secretary and the Chairman of IMAR
states that these Mongolian college
graduates have appealed continually
to various levels of government for
equal employment opportunity during
the past 16 years. However, the
local government has ignored their
requests under the pretext of
“financial hardships and
difficulties creating jobs” despite
the fact that most of the local
Chinese students and even many
Chinese from elsewhere have been
given employment opportunities in
the Banner.

The letter also states that although
some ethnic Mongolian officials in
the Government have been sympathetic
to their plight and tried to tackle
the problem, the Government has not
made any positive move and lied to
them saying that their requests are
“under consideration”.

“We thank you for your concerns on
our grievances. At the same time we
are concerned about possible
retaliation by the authorities,”
said Ms. Ariuunhas at the end of the
interview by SMHRIC, “any news
report by foreign media mentioning
our interview can become a
convenient excuse for the
authorities to accuse us of being
engaged in minzu fenlie
(nationality separatism)”.

In contrast to the fear of being
labeled as “separatists”, the
attitude of Mr. Yu, a Chinese and
the husband of the Chinese detainee
Ms. Gao Fang, is a courageous one.
“This is not only an issue of social
injustice, but also an ethnic
problem concerning the minority
rights,” said Mr. Yu, “we should
appeal to the international
community about this case without
any fear.”

Southern Mongolia, known as Inner
Mongolia, is home to six million
indigenous Mongolians who have
supposedly enjoyed nationality
autonomy since 1947. However the
reality is completely different. Any
activity of the Mongolians which
seeks redress against the deplorable
violation of basic human rights and
fundamental freedoms has been
subjected to harsh punishment.
Despite Mongolian being an “official
language”, it is de facto prohibited
from any official use or social
function. Many restaurants in Huhhot,
capital of the region, prohibit
their employees from speaking in
Mongolian at work; some companies
and even government agencies
publicly state “No Mongolians” in
their job postings.

As Dr. Uradyn E. Bulag, Professor at
Cambridge University, put it
eloquently in his paper entitled
“Mongolian Ethnicity and Linguistic
Anxiety in China”: “Because almost
all jobs are controlled by Chinese,
university-level knowledge of
Mongolian is no different from
illiteracy.”